Segalmex affair: Diconsa is ordered to report on the “phantom” purchase of 20,000 tonnes of powdered milk

The corruption case that the Mexican Food Safety (Segalmex) is facing continues to gain strength after the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) obtained arrest warrants against 22 people. Now, a branch of the agency has been asked to report on the input purchases made in 2022.

During the plenary session of the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Protection of Personal Data (INAI), it was ordered that Diconsa report on the purchase process of 20,000 tons of milk powder. This involves the search for contracts, proof of payment, invoices, and other documents related to the purchasing process corresponding to the year 2022.

Commissioner Adrián Alcalá informed that this request for information is linked to the misappropriation of resources found by the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) in Segalmex and its subsidiaries Diconsa and Liconsa in the 2021 public account.

Only in the third installment of the ASF report, were detected amounts that total 2,346 million pesos between Diconsa, Liconsa, and Segalmex, with irregularities totaling more than 15 billion pesos in the observations of the public accounts of 2019 and 2020.

According to the commissioner, the purchases with excessive prices in Diconsa are among the problems that ASF observed in its audits and investigations. It was only in the last installment that amounts that need clarification were observed, which totaled 1,452 million pesos.

“These observations made at Diconsa include notions such as the absence of physical inventory, departures of goods not invoiced, missing stocks, uncredited payments for subcontracted services, uncollected debts of former employees, taxes, and expired products. These observations generated the presentation of various complaints by the Attorney General of the Republic, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Ministry of the Civil Service,” he said.

Commissioner Adrien Alcala ordered the opening of data in Diconsa in the context of a request for information. Diconsa declared itself incompetent to answer, which is why he asked that the same answer be sent to Liconsa.

Faced with this, the requester of the information filed a disagreement appeal with the Henna after being invited to submit the application to Liconsa. He asserted that the two Segalmex subsidiaries, Liconsa and Diconsa, are representations of the same person, who is Leonel Cota Montano, the director of Mexican food security.

The commissioner of Henna agreed with the information requester and recalled that in Cota Montaño’s statements before the Chamber of Deputies, the purchase of 20 thousand tons of powdered milk at a bounty, so Diconsa must increase its research.

This arrangement with the subsidiary of Segalmex comes just days after the Attorney General of the Republic obtained 22 arrest warrants against persons, former employees and beneficiaries, for possible offenses of organized crime, operations with resources of illicit origin and embezzlement.

According to the prosecution, these people would have celebrated illegal contracts and illicit payments for an amount of 142 million 440 thousand 883 pesos for the acquisition of sugarwhose benefit to the population could not be verified.

A few weeks ago, in another review of the request for information, the Henna ordered the FGR to make transparent the information on the complaints filed by the Segalmex caseincluding the number of investigations opened, the number of arrest warrants and the irregularities denounced.

The Segalmex affair represents one of the biggest embezzlements in the country, since it even doubles that of the so-called master crook which was for an amount of 7 thousand 670 million pesos.